Members of the Porbandar Congress unit burnt effigies of Chief Minister Narendra Modi and State Home Minister Amit Shah to register their protest against the Ahmedabad hooch tragedy here on Thursday.

Gujarat Congress president Siddharth Patel, who was in the city to address party workers ahead of the local municipal elections, demanded resignation of the two leaders. “Taking the moral responsibility (of the incident), the home minister should step down immediately,” he said.

He also came down hard on the Narendra Modi government, saying the law and order situation in the state was deteriorating. “The hooch tragedy is the latest to its tally. No one is safe in Gujarat… the Modi government has failed on all fronts and has lost the moral right to rule in Gujarat,” he added.

Earlier in the day, local Congress workers gathered in front of Mahatma Gandhi’s statue at the Manek Chowk area in the city centre and burnt effigies.

Meanwhile, in the wake of the deaths due to the consumption of spurious liquor, the Junagadh police raided 44 places in the district and arrested over 50 bootleggers. They seized foreign and country made liquor estimated to be worth over Rs 1 lakh. According to police sources, the crackdown will continue in the next few days.